The following text and photos are a personal diary of my experiences on the 2000 El'gygytgyn expedition, sent by email from the field. It is intended mostly for friends and family, though I will try to include some science should we ever get to that point and should the satellite link work from the lake.

Click here for larger version! (2MB)

Lake E Panorama Pictures
Cabinroof Panorama
Peaks Panorama

7/12/2000 Wednesday - See the pictures!
Flew from Fairbanks to Anchorage today to begin my trip to Lake El'gygytgyn. Already in Anchorage were Celeste Cosby and Mike Apfelbaum from U Mass Amherst and Frank Niessen and Connie Kopisch from the Alfred Wegener Institute in Germany. Already in Magadan are Julie Brigham-Grette (Umass) and Bernd Wagner (AWI). We spent the afternoon dealing with freight issues with Magadan Airlines. It appears there will be plenty of problems. Everyone is in good spirits and eager to get on with the expedition.

7/13/2000 Thursday - 7/14/2000 Friday (Dateline crossing) - See the pictures!
We arrived at Magadan airlines counter at 6:30AM to check in and begin dealing with the considerable amount of luggage/freight that we need to transport to Magadan. The big worry here is that there is only one scheduled flight to Magadan per week, and next week's was already cancelled. So if we do not get everything in today, it will be two weeks before we can get it to Magadan, putting the entire expedition in danger of failing before it really even begins.

I had to take all of my equipment as excess baggage because our freight consolidators were unable to complete the necessary paperwork to transport it as cargo; these guys are boneheads. In the end I was able to get a better rate myself than with them as cargo. The German equipment was still in bond, and did not get customs approval until a few minutes before the scheduled departure. It took several hours to then load it into the plane (about 3000 kg), so we did not actually depart until nearly noon (9 AM scheduled departure). There was significant worry that they would simply quit loading and take off, or that they would charge us for delaying the plane. But all of our equipment made it onto the plane in the end (and no one demanded more money -yet), so we were quite happy. The plane ride was uneventful.

The next major hurdle was dealing with Russian customs. I was unable to get customs clearance for all of my equipment (600 kg) because there is a limit of 250 kg for personal baggage. It was more than three hours before we all made it to the sidewalk outside of the airport. There we met Pavel Minyuk of NEISRI, the institute in Magadan that we are working with.

Then came the question of how to transport us and our luggage to NEISRI. A small truck was waiting for us, but it was not large enough to transport everything. This truck took everyone to Magadan except Pavel, Bernd, and I. Another truck was called, but it took several hours to arrive due to some repair work along the way. This wait for unknown reasons did not particularly concern us, as we all knew that such waiting is endemic to working in Russia. Finally, we arrived in Magadan and the entire expedition group was assembled for the first time at NEISRI about 8PM. This group also includes Olga and Vladimir Glushkova of NEISRI and Grisha Federov of AARI in St. Petersburg.

July 15, 2000 Saturday - See the pictures!
Because of the weekend, we were unable to begin dealing with the onerous task of getting customs clearance for the 3000 kg of German equipment and my remaining 250 kg. So we spent the morning discussing some logistics, and went for a walk through town during the afternoon. Today is a Magadan holiday - their 61st anniversary as a town. There were many people lying on the beach amid the rotting hulks of automobiles and ships, and strolling through the park where a party was going on. It was a beautiful sunny day, and the local people were well dressed and having fun.

Bernd and I are staying in Pavel's flat. His wife and daughter are vacationing for the summer in south-eastern Russia, so we have the place to ourselves. Julie and Celeste are staying with Olga and her husband, while Frank, Connie, Mike and Grisha are staying with a friend of Pavel's.

July 16, 2000 Sunday
Today we had our first serious discussions of science priorities at the lake. We had initially hoped to have 5 to 6 weeks at the lake, but it is likely that we will only have 3 to 4 weeks to complete the same work, due to our delayed start (we had hope to be in Magadan with customs clearance by July 5). Frank and Connie are leading the seismic effort to determine the sediment thickness distribution, the sediment stratigraphy, and the crater morphology. Julie, Celeste and Mike will work primarily with water chemistry and stratigraphy. Bernd will work on both this and the seismic effort. Once my meteorological station is set-up and running, I will help with both the seismic and lake chemistry efforts. Olga, Vlodia, and Grisha will work primarily on geomorphology of the crater and the outlet stream area.

We had initially planned to camp on the broad western shore, but it is likely now that we will camp near the outlet stream where a cabin exists. The owners of this cabin live in Pevek, our next stop, and we plan to hire them to fish and hunt for some our food.

To get to the lake, we next must charter a cargo aircraft (AN-26) to take all of us to Pevek. This plane used to be based in Magadan, but is now in Anadyr. Because we do not know when customs will clear our equipment, we cannot yet schedule this flight. Hopefully it can come from Anadyr the next day, but this is not clear. It also appears that we are currently exceeding the maximum payload of this plane, and so we are trying to consolidate and reduce the net weight of our equipment. Diets were also discussed.

Once in Pevek, we will charter a cargo helicopter (MI-8) to take most of us to the lake. It will take at least 3 and probably 4 trips with this helicopter. However, we will likely not have permission to use this much fuel, as it is currently rationed in Pevek. Therefore, we will likely rent a tank and driver to haul some people and lots of equipment and fuel to the lake overland. This tank will stay with us for the remainder of the field work, and be used for transportation to distant parts of the lake region, should it actually make it as far as the lake in the first place.

July 17, 2000 Monday - See the pictures!
Today Pavel, Bernd, Connie, and Frank spent the day at customs at the airport, returning at about midnight. The major problem seems to be that there is personal equipment mixed in with their equipment. Here 'personal' means more than shampoo, etc., but any materials that can be used up, like paper towels, thermal printer paper, etc. Also included in personal are rubber boats and motors. Such there is much discussion about what should be or shouldn't be considered personal, why this system is so crazy, how long this will all take, whether this will mean we will have to cancel the expedition, etc. Basically we are running short of time.

While all this is going on, there was basically little to do, and that is actually quite frustrating. We completed most of the food shopping, and saw a few of the sights. I learned today that there is more to eat in Magadan than simply bread, cheese and sausage. There is actually tons of fresh food that is dirt cheap by Alaska standards, and so I am probably eating better here than I do in Fairbanks. I spent much of the day visiting stores, buying this and that, figuring out where the best deals were, figuring out where to buy what etc. It's an interesting process that Americans never get to experience I think, because you have to walk quite a lot to get from the meat store to the bread store to the cheese store, etc. Many of these store are 7-11 sized or smaller, and located every other block. Many are tiny sidewalk kiosks. Several are like small indoor shopping malls that have many store strung together. And within each store, you pay one person for the meat, another person for the drink, etc., even though they are only 3 meters away. There are also many people that simply set up shop on the sidewalks, selling fish, sunflower seeds, etc. These open air markets have no refrigeration, and the women selling their goods spend the day waving a small leafy branch over the food to keep the flies off.

There are no real supermarkets in Magadan, and all shopping is done in little shops. I am instantly spotted as a foreigner, if not by the fact that I have longer hair than all the Russian men put together then by the fact that I can't speak the language. But everyone is friendly, and I point and smile a lot and more or less get what I need. The food stores have plenty of goods. There are also computer stores, hardware stores, and the like, but they do not have a large selection typically. But everything is cheap compared to American prices, and we have lots of buying power. Unfortunately, no one takes credit cards and every dollar we spend on goods is one less to spend on charter flights and cargo expenses.

It would be difficult to describe Magadan as beautiful, but it does have it's highlights and I think is a nice place to spend some time. The apartment buildings are mostly identical and have a style somewhere between University dorms and military barracks. Many of these are crumbling, and there has been little investment in infrastructure maintenance over the past ten years. The sidewalks are treacherous, the automobiles own the road, and apparently gray is the only paint color available. But there have been a few new construction projects since my last visit, and some of them are quite well done and stylish. The interiors, particularly people's flats, are typically very neat and tasteful, much more so than my house. The people also pay much attention to their personal appearance, and I often find that I am underdressed everywhere I go. While there is a bit of trash on the streets here and there, it is actually a very clean city by American standards.

Life in Magadan does not much resemble typical American city life. The culture is an odd mix of 1950s, 1980s, and today. I am sitting in Pavel's flat watching the X-Files (in Russian), waiting for everyone to return from the airport where they are dealing with customs. But Pavel has no phone. He lives only a few blocks from the institute, so I can easily walk there to see what is going on, or walk to Olga's flat. Within the institute, some researchers have the latest computers, while others have none. Many maps are still made by hand, and much work is still done with pencil and paper. Many of the cars on the road are 30 years old, but 2000 SUVs are mixed in with them; most people do not own cars. Typical annual salaries are about 1/10 of the American equivalents, but they still gets perks like free airline travel and significantly more vacation time than I. Hot water works once in a while, and power outages are daily. Most beer is served warm, but a bottle of vodka costs only $1.50. I have not met anyone I would consider unfriendly; I cant say that about most American towns I've been in.

Another big difference between life here and in America is peoples' tolerance of delays and problems. Things rarely go smoothly here, and it is generally accepted with a roll of the eyes and the lighting of a cigarette. For Americans used to getting instant satisfaction, it can be a challenge to remain calm. And once calm, to keep from dying of boredom. This will all change once we get to the lake, and have no bureaucracies or paperwork to do deal with. Only mosquitos and blizzards…

July 18, 2000 Tuesday
Today we had some minor success with the customs problems. Pavel obtained authorization to remove the personal equipment from the scientific equipment. This was no minor job, however, because every box of equipment had to be opened, checked for anything that could be considered personal, removed and weighed. Essentially every remaining item in these boxes had to be catalogued, weighed (per box), and valued so that a new inventory list could be prepared and presented to customs. Going through these boxes again took most of the evening. The people working at customs were actually very friendly and even bought chocolate for the group because there was no time to get dinner. It is not really clear who is really interested in these lists and whether every item is catalogued, because the customs people actually only paid attention for the first hour and after they just let the group work on their own. So it was frustrating for both the people doing the work at the airport, as well as the people in Magadan who had little to do but wait and hope.

I spent the day practicing my Russian and have gotten good enough now to read the words, even though I don't understand them. But there are many words that either have the same roots as our words or are simply russianized American words. So I can almost tell what a shop sells before I go into it. And I can almost buy things now without speaking much English. I have little to do for the expedition at this point. I am spending my time learning Russian and working on my other research projects.

July 19, 2000 Wednesday - See the pictures!
Today there was little to do for anyone except Pavel. He rewrote the customs declarations to reflect the changes that we made by removing the personal items. This took most of the day and several trips to the customs office. Julie and Frank spent most of the day working on writing papers about previous research. Mike, Bernd, Connie, Celeste and I spent the afternoon sightseeing. There is a nice museum in Magadan that has displays of natural history, wildlife, anthropology, and the gulag experience. Magadan was the main port of entry for the labor camps that Siberia is famous for during the Stalin period. There were photographs, pieces of equipment, biographies, maps, etc detailing life in the gulags, where they were, who was sent there, etc. Unfortunately is was mostly in Russian, and I did not learn enough the day before to understand more than a few words. On the way back to the institute we explored more shops, and found a high end ski shop, a very good computer store, a fishing/camping store, and outside bar that had an actual lawn. So my impression of Magadan is slowly improving. Later that night we went to another outside bar and met many of the locals, and helped one of them celebrate her birthday.

July 20, 2000 Thursday - See the pictures!
Today was the first full day that customs had our official declarations, and Pavel spent much of the day filling out miscellaneous other forms and letters that they wanted. It would have been nice to have the equipment here a week or two ahead of us, but it is simply the nature of expedition work that everything is done at the last minute, especially when hopping from one expedition to another. So we continue to wait.

Today we went to see a memorial statue of the gulags and to another beach. The statue sits on top of a large hill behind the city, so the entire city is in view. I've actually come to like Magadan quite a bit, even though everything is so gray. The drive to beach took us through old forest fire scars and fields of eriophorum in bloom. The beach itself was foggy and so the view was not so good. Even though we are sightseeing here, much of the discussion along the way are related to the regional geology, geomorphology, and paleoclimatology of the region. It is nice to be around so many knowledgeable people. It is like having my own private natural history school.

In the evening we checked out more of the local night life, and found some places that were quite nice. One of the big complaints about Siberian cities are the toilets - they are typically not places that you want to visit unless truly necessary. However, in the past few days we have found several toilets that were very clean, and we found one last night in a jazz bar (!) that actually had a working door lock and paper! This probably seems like a strange thing to make note of, but it was actually a highlight of the day.

July 21, 2000 Friday
Well, we just got the word that our equipment has cleared customs. So we are off to the airport to transfer it the cargo plane. “Hurry, hurry…”

July 22, 2000 Saturday - See the pictures!
On Friday we removed all of our baggage from customs and transferred it to the cargo plane hangar. This was a major accomplishment. It took most of the day, hurrying up only to wait, over and over. The typical problems of the truck breaking down (several times, for different reasons), waiting for documents to be prepared, waiting because we had not waited enough, etc. But by 10PM we were back in Magadan, and went out to dinner at a very nice place called the Jazz Café. We each got dinners that would rival that from fanciest American restaurants, for about $5 US. I’ve grown to enjoy Magadan very much.

Saturday we caught up on sleep, but still put in a full day dealing with logistics for the next leg of the trip. We had found out on Friday that we would have to wait until at least Tuesday before we could leave. There are no real explanations for such things that make any sense, so I will not bother to try to explain. It is still not clear whether we are overweight for cargo, so it is still not clear that we will make it at all. Apparently we have to make several stops along the way to Pevek for fuel. In 1998 we were able to fly directly, but this time we cannot take a full fuel load. Plus there is no fuel available in Pevek, so we cannot land empty.

Saturday night Mike and I checked out the local disco with some friends. That was definitely a trip highlight. The place was very much like an American club, with dancing, strobe lights, a real bar, and lots of young people. We met tons of people at the bar, some who spoke good English and some who spoke none. I had my phrase book with me so I was able to practice some Russian. After a while I just began pointing to the Russian words. An expensive night out here costs $10 US.

July 23, 2000 Sunday - See the pictures!
Today we loaded the last of our cargo onto a truck for the airport. This is mostly equipment and some personal things that we had kept at the institute to work on or repack. I consolidated some of my stuff and pulled out about 40kg to leave here to save weight. Pavel, Grisha and Vlodia dropped this last cargo off at the airport, while we went off on our own errands. That evening we had a dinner with almost the entire group at the Jazz Café. It again was very good food and lot’s of fun. Tomorrow we need to get the last of our errands accomplished before we leave on Tuesday.

July 24, 2000 Monday - See the pictures!
We have been cleaning out the banks nearby changing dollars into rubles, so today we got the last of our money changed. It makes quite a pile when its all in one spot. Everyone is in fairly good spirits and is eager to get on with the trip. Being stuck in Magadan has not been so bad, but it still is being stuck. It is frustrating to see days slip by when we know that we will not have enough time already to do everything that we want. We are all hoping for good weather at the lake, so that we can maximize our field time. Weather maps of eastern Russia can be found at www.meteo-tv.ru. (The ‘H’ means low pressure, not high; perhaps some sort of Russian joke - there’s a lot of those). Everything is still on track for leaving tomorrow, but a lot can change between now and then...

This will probably be my last update for a while, as it will have to be by satellite phone after this.

*** Following summary of events was received by Peter during phone conversations with Matt

July 27, 2000 Thursday
The expedition set out to Pevek on a chartered AN-26, unfortunately the plane was not big enough to handle the passengers and all the cargo. The crew got separated from a large portion of their cargo, which was left behind in Magadan. The charter flight operator promised to bring the rest of the gear the next day, naturally not free of charge. Which means that the money allocated for the flight back from Pevek to Magadan had to be spent on a second flight from Magadan to Pevek - in other words, our people have no money to fly back from Pevek once they return from the lake. Pevek is out of jet-fuel. Pevek receives fuel once a year by a tanker ship. This ship arrives sometime in mid to late August. Naturally during the weeks before the ship arrives the fuel situation is quite tricky. Currently there is no fuel for the helicopter to ferry them to the lake.

July 28, 2000 Friday - See the pictures!
The cargo plane was expected to arrive - it didn't. Problems with the plane were reported; the crew is stuck in Pevek over the weekend. Still no chopper fuel.

July 31, 2000 Monday
The cargo plane is broken, gear will be delivered once the plane is fixed - keep in mind that they don't have FedEx Overnight for spare parts. On the brighter side the fuel problem has been solved. Some local chieftain found fuel some 100km away in at a mining operation, plus our scientists have been siphoning fuel off of a plane bound to Moscow which supposedly could spare some fuel - no joke. The crew is determined, they will go to the lake and they will stay for as long as it takes from them to complete their mission, or the lake freezes over, whichever happens earlier. Current temperature at Pevek is 10-12 degrees celsius during the day and 0-2 degrees celsius at night.

August 1, 2000 Tuesday
The cargo plane has been fixed and will bring the gear, but only if it can get the fuel which our brave scientists have accumulated. Basically the guy with the AN-26 can't return to Magadan unless he gets the fuel from our people. If they give him the fuel, they won't have any for the chopper. Does this remind anyone of "Mad Max"?

August 2, 2000 Wednesday
The cargo plane arrived in Pevek, but the pilot is holding our people ransom for the fuel. He won't open the cargo doors of the plane unless he gets the fuel. Guess what - he got his fuel. Somehow our people found more jet-fuel. The current situation is that the crew has all their gear, they have enough fuel for the chopper ride to the lake. What they don't have is the chopper. The helicopter is out on Cape Schmidt guiding the tanker ship through sea ice. The plan is to have me sending sea ice maps from the National Ice Center to Pevek so that the tanker can use our maps for guidance rather than the helicopter. Thanks to Hajo Eicken at the Geophysical Institute, who helped me to find the right information in record time, this plan seems to work.

*** end phone conversation log

August 3, 2000 Thursday - See the pictures!
We are in Pevek. Due to delays of various sorts, we did not actually leave Magadan until Thursday a week ago. These delays all centered around the charter plane company; it has a Russian name, but I believe it translates to something like 'Fly-by-Night Air'. As far as I can tell, they don't fly much though; this may have something to do with the fact that it wont be dark for another month. The biggest snafu we've had so far is that the AN-26 cargo plane that we chartered was not large enough to carry all of our equipment. We had mostly been concerned with the weight, but it turned out to be volume that was a problem. The extra fuel tank they installed inside the plane took about a quarter of the volume of the plane, and we had no way to account for this. The aircraft company had our gear for nearly a week, yet they either did not check or did not tell us that the volume would be a problem; I suspect they knew all along. We have grown not to trust these people very much. We watched them load the plane from inside the airport, then begin unloading it to make room for us. Unfortunately we did not have the chance to specify what should go on the first trip and what for the second, as we did not find out about this problem until minutes before we left. As it was, we had to pay about $1100 in fees to the Pevek airport because we arrived after their normal closing time. Anyway, they promised they would return the next day, Friday, with the remaining equipment, but it did not actually happen until Wednesday August 2, nearly a week later. Apparently there was some problem with the scheduled or unscheduled maintenance. Nobody works weekends here, and this is the third weekend that has hurt us.

Anyway, a different plane delivered our second load of gear, but it did not have enough fuel to return to Magadan. So they demanded that we give them the fuel we have been fighting for here to use in our helicopters, and they would not release our cargo until they had the fuel. We could not do this because then we would be stuck in Pevek with no fuel and no money, as opposed to just no money. At this point we are essentially out of money. We had only enough money to charter one plane in each direction, now we must take two in each direction. We must somehow get more money when we return to Magadan, and find someone who will trust us to pay them after we land. We have several options that we are working on for that. Donations are welcome, however.

So after some serious bickering and name calling, some other fuel was found and our cargo was released this morning. Before the plane took off, I let the owner know in no uncertain terms that he should not attend my birthday party. We spent the next few hours scrambling to sort and pack our gear into priority piles for each of the three helicopter flights that we hope to make. Just at about the time we finished, we heard the helicopter start up and watched it fly away. The governor of Chukotka, Nazarof, sent a message that it should pick him up and take him on joy rides for the next week. So, we are basically stuck again, but we are at least in possession of all of our gear. There is another helicopter that is currently in pieces on the tarmac that the airport manager says can be reassembled by Monday, but this is of course questionable. So, it looks like I'm spending my birthday in Pevek.

On the bright side, the weather was not good enough to fly today, but the forecast is optimistic. There are several high pressure masses moving our way, but after these move through summer will likely be over. The geese are already flying south, and we are bracing for an unplanned winter field trip. The only technical problem with this is that we are working on rubber boats, not icebreakers, and sustained cold weather will make it impossible to work on the water.

It would be very difficult to describe Pevek as a beautiful town. It is much smaller than Magadan, and in a worse state of decay. Still the people are nice and we have made many friends. The surrounding countryside is outstanding and on clear days is very compelling to look at. To purchase an apartment here costs somewhere between US$200 and $500 (that is buy as in 'own forever with no additional costs'). I was thinking of buying a building full of them just for the fun of it.

The prognosis is for at least one flight on Monday. If things really go our way, and there are two functioning helicopters at our disposal, we could possibly get everyone and everything to lake in one day. But who knows. Tomorrow we're planning on having a meeting with the local legitimate authority to say hi and tell them what we are up to; we have had much use for them yet, as far as I've seen. We hope also to set up a meeting with governor Nazarov, who should be in town some time this weekend or early next week. Tomorrow night I'm planning a birthday party for myself. It should be great fun, so stop by if you're in the area. I've made lots of friends here, and the local bar is hopping on Friday nights, complete with homemade disco ball and all the cucumbers you can eat...

August 12, 2000 Saturday Lake E
Today I showered. It has been a very productive week, beginning with our arrival on Monday.

At 7:30AM in Pevek, we had all of our personal gear on the sidewalk, where we hoped a truck would come to pick it up and take it to the airport. We left Grisha to guard it while the rest of us took the bus to the airport. On this bus were also all of the airport employees.

Once at the airport, while waiting for someone to open the doors, I talked with Rad, the airtraffic controller who speaks English. He told me that we would get at least one flight today. This was true. What he did not know was that by some miracle the pilots had calculated that if we stopped to pick up fuel along the way, we could get everything on in two helicopter flights. So, we jammed the MI8 to the brim and left just enough room to sit, hoping that what was left could fit in one more flight. We took off just after 11AM and headed generally south. I had put my compass in the top of my day pack, but in one of the last second, hurry-up twists of fate, my day pack did not make it into the seating area and it was not at all clear where it actually was.

We had excellent weather on our helicopter trip into the lake. - See the pictures!
Frank, Bernd, Connie, Celeste, and I were on the first flight in. We flew for about an hour until we came across a small town. At this point we landed, and realized that we were not going directly to the lake but to a mining town to get fuel. The pilots got out, lit up, and began fueling the exterior tanks. During this time, I made a small tunnel on top of the gear and climbed to the back of the helicopter to search for my pack. Not being much of a spelunker, I was a bit nervous about trapping myself into such a small space, knowing that the only way I could get back was if I made it to the end with enough room to turn around. But I eventually made it, found my pack, turned around, and crawled back to the front. Before we took off again, I showed the pilots the Lake E movie.

About an hour later we landed at the lake. Along the way over the crater, we scoped out various streams searching for a suitable harbor. Finding none, we landed at the outlet stream where a cabin exists. My understanding is that Yuri owns this cabin. After breaking in (no one remembered to bring a key), we found that this was an ideal site to base our work and began unloading the helicopter. The weather at this point was ideal, as was most of our trip along the way. Once unloaded, the helicopter took off, leaving us to shuttle equipment to the cabin and explore our new environment.

The cabin is quite nice. It is clean, spacious, and fairly warm. On the south end exists a glassed in veranda, and on the north a large kitchen and several beds. An attic big enough to have all of us sleep up there, and a workshop along the west side. We settled in a bit, got a stove working, and had a hot cup of tea by about 7PM. At this point we figured that there was no way the second helicopter was coming, considering the time and the fact that the weather had turned to shit. But we were wrong.

At just about the time my ramen noodles were ready to eat (everyone else got theirs in the first pot), I heard a hum above the roar of the stove. I stuck my head out the door, heard the wop wop wop, and ran for my rain clothes. Several minutes later I tucked under the rotating blades of our favorite MI8 and opened the door to see many big smiles. We tossed the cargo out, waved goodbye to the pilots, and looked at each other incredulously. We had arrived.

The next day we woke up to beautiful weather. We had clear skies and a full view of the lake. After so much hassle and heartache, we were alone in a vast wilderness that would soon become our scientific playground.

Work began immediately. Being most familiar with cabin life, I began some of the simple repair work necessary for living, like reattaching the door to the outhouse that had been blown off by the helicopter, and then got going on the assembling the met station. Mike and I spent the next three days getting it fully up and running. Bernd and Frank got the Helga assembled. Helga is a large barge sitting on four inflatable bags on which all of the seismic work will be carried out. The rest of the crew got their tents set up, the kitchen gear and food boxes sorted, and prepared for field work. It was a very optimistic atmosphere, and the spectacular weather and scenery of our surrounding seemed almost surreal compared to the city life and city problems of the past month trying to get here.

The next day, Tuesday, we woke up to smoke. Fortunately it was generated probably 150 km away by some forest fires, and not the cabin. I am sleeping in the cabin because I forgot my tent; everyone else is outside. Visibility was less than 2 km, but work proceeded nonetheless. Everyone had their share of problems with finding and assembling their gear, but I am most familiar with my own. I had most of the tower assembled and ready to go, but Mike and I spent over 6 hours trying to fix a problem with the alignment of my snow depth sensor (which hopefully wont be needed until after we leave), delaying my work on other equipment. Helga had some problems as well. But no one expects that things go smoothly at this stage, and such things are dealt with as they arise with whatever solutions seem feasible at the time without much ado. Although frustrating and swear-inducing at the time, that is one of my favorite parts of field work.

While we continued sorting and assembling gear, Pavel began fishing. While his homemade rod and reel did not yield much result, his set-net along shore proved to be a big success. That night we ate our first El'gygytgyn trout. - See the pictures!

During this time, Connie turned the workshop into a state-of-the-art electronics lab. Pulled out from the dozens of (very heavy) metal boxes we lugged around for 2000 km were every conceivable toy that electronics techs drool over. The world simply needs more Connies. There are probably many people left in the world that can build their own dataloggers and have the patience to fix almost anything, but very few that can do so while sleeping in a tent and showering once a week in an environment that most people think is better left to caribou and Eskimos.

On Thursday Julie, Olga, Vlodia, and Grisha went off on the boat to begin the geomorphololgy work. An important part of the scientific picture of this lake is understanding the landforms surrounding the lake. By the time they came back, it was obvious that the broad plain on the west side of the lake was created while that area was submerged by the lake. That is, they are lake sediments that are now above water. Perhaps this was obvious to everyone already, but I am a glaciologist and a likely a bit slow to pick up on such things.

After Mike and I got the met station bolted down to the ground, Helga launched on her maiden voyage. The weather had been fairly calm with slow, steady wind from the south (bringing smoke), but quickly changed to come from the north. The air temperature dropped 10 degrees in an hour, and the winds turned the lake into ocean surf. So within about an hour after lugging Helga into the water, the entire crew lugged her out so that she would not be destroyed by the pounding waves. By the time that I had finished installing a series of soil moisture and temperature sensors into a pit near the met station, dinner was ready. Pavel's net yielded 5 fish that day, and we dug into caviar, vodka, and deep fried fish for dinner, on the shore of the lake that will most likely become famous because of the research we're conducting today.

We woke up to calm seas on Friday morning. I still had not yet even opened my backpack at this point, let alone change my clothes. But having finished, more or less, the met station, I began getting lake equipment ready. Helga took off to do some water sampling at the coring site from our winter expedition in 1998, while I got the underwater dataloggers programmed and assembled the Sonar. The lake was covered with thick fog as Julie and I navigated our way to find Helga and begin lake temperature profiling. Temperature, and therefore density, is an important variable in understanding lake systems because these control the way the water mixes. If the water is temperature stratified, little mixing will occur from top to bottom. If it is the same temperature top to bottom, nutrients are free to travel about, especially if stirred up by the wind at the surface. The results of this day's work showed that the most of the 170 meter water depth is at the same temperature, 2.9C. Only a few meters at the top is any warmer.

That morning, Friday, was a fun one for me. It may seem like a funny thing to take note of, but the fact that I hadn't even opened my backpack for four days tickles me. It has been non-stop semi-controlled mayhem since we arrived. As soon as one project is finished, the next most important science task dominates my thoughts more than a shower or a change of clothes. This focus is priceless to me. Even though it occasionally leads to some tensions with the other highly focused neighbors, there is nothing better in life than having a strong purpose for waking up, for me. Hopefully I'll still think that in several weeks. But even if I don't, I know that these time will be those that I remember most clearly and fondly.

After the temperature work, Julie, Celeste, and I headed west to examine a few of the inlet streams. We found a nice one and hiked around a while. Julie and Celeste collected diatoms and slime from the stream, and I look for good places to put pressure transducers and met stations. Afterwards we walked along the shore and got a geomorphology lesson from Julie. There are bluffs extended about 12 m above water level that are clearly old lake bottom deposits. The current lake shore is covered with gravel piles about 2 m above lake level. These are apparently deposited there during huge storms with waves at least 2 m high. This is over my head. The finer sands and silts get kept in suspension and only deposit further towards the center of the lake. This creates large underwater shelves, like in the ocean, that are less than 10 m deep and extended about 1 km offshore. Then the lake bottom dives down to about 160 m and flattens out again. We were able to see this with the sonar. One of our goals is to tool around the lake and create a new bathymetric map by recording this depth data along with our position. - See the pictures! - See more pictures!

August 13, 2000 Sunday Lake E
Seas were again calm on Saturday, so the Helga went out to finish the water sampling cut short by bad weather the day before. I reprogrammed the data loggers, scrambled to assemble or fix a few other odds and ends, and pushed off the boat containing Julie and Pavel to repeat the water temperature profiling. My thought was that perhaps we had lowered down the probe too quickly the day before, not giving the thermistor enough time to equilibrate. This proved to be true. Julie let out the line much more slowly this time, and we go more accurate results, though at some cost to her core temperature. Bad weather from the north again brought rough water and cold temperatures by late afternoon, and put an end to the boat work.

This was the first day I had some time to sit down long enough to contemplate the idea of a shower. Only Connie, Celeste and I were in camp, everyone else was either on the water or doing geomorphology work. Celeste had spent the past day or two trying to calibrate the lake chemistry probe that I brought along, and was finally having some success. I started working on a thermistor string that I will place in the center of the lake to continuously record temperature at many depths over the next year or two. By the time I finally got into the shower, or rather the little room that we bring a gallon of hot water into, everyone else had returned due to the bad weather. Being almost dinner time, and clean for the first time in more than a week, I flew my kite in the wind and rain, thankful for a few minutes of relaxation not caused by exhaustion.

Today we again awoke to cold temperatures (2C) and strong wind and rain from the north. Mike and I began constructing the thermistor string while the others caught up on note taking and computer work. Connie continues to sit in his laboratory and create or fix new devices. Apparently the printer used in the seismic work was damaged en route and is not repairable by normal mortals. Fortunately Connie is working on it, so there is some chance of repair. By early afternoon the rain let up, but the wind and cold persisted. Work on the thermistor string went well, and after dinner we had it finished. Julie and Celeste hiked up one of the nearby hills to GPS the old lake level lines and get a view. Hopefully my work will slow down in a day or two as I get all of my equipment deployed. I still have two kites I have not flown here yet.

August 16, 2000 Wednesday Lake E
Monday morning saw some of the calmest winds yet, and we all began preparations for a day on the lake. Pavel checked his net and found it loaded with over a hundred fish. This caused great excitement and optimism in camp, and we looked forward to a very productive day scientifically as well.

To start, Helga drove into the outlet stream. It was not at all clear whether she had enough power to make it out, but we needed to find out because this area is the only place of protection from storms from the north. Up until now we had been dragging her completely out of the water, which takes all of us. But when she is completely loaded with seismic gear, this is impossible. Fortunately, she was able to make it back out again, just barely. In the future, with a fully loaded barge and a higher stream levels, we may need to use the zodiacs as tug boat.

I made the final preparations on the thermistor string, while the others prepared the boats. I needed two boats to deploy the string, and the geomorphologists wanted to use the good weather to get to the north side of the lake, so all of us went to the lake center to help me drop the string overboard. This took about two hours and went fairly smoothly. We then proceeded to the north side of the lake. By the time we got there, the wind had picked up considerably and it was raining a bit. The waves were already fairly high, and you can never really be sure whether this is something that will continue to get worse or what. Above the beach are gravel deposits almost 3 m high that we created during storms with waves at least that high. We decided to stay a while and study these deposits, although hopefully not while new ones were forming. Fortunately by the time we left, several hours later, the waves were not yet three meters high, though they were quite big.

I was driving the Germans' zodiac with a 15 horsepower engine with Celeste and Olga on board, while Julie was driving her 25 horsepower zodiac with Grisha and Vlodia. We pushed off into the surf, got the motor going, and began to head off. Because my engine was so small, I could not get up on step until Celeste and Olga crawled under the cowling in the front of the boat. Unfortanately for them, this meant that every time we hit a wave, they would go airborne only to slam against the floor boards a second later. Even wide open, we did not make much time against the wind and waves.

The wind was from the south east, so we headed to the eastern shore for some protection. After about 20 minutes of getting completely soaked and slamming through the waves, the sheltered waters made the trip more enjoyable. We hugged the shore and checked out the landforms on the way back. None of the streams along this shore had any water in them. This strikes me as a little odd considering they've had several million years to do some damage. Anyway, about 45 minutes later we finally made it back to camp, and were greeted at the door by Mike. Apparently he was having a very interesting day.

From the time we left until the time we returned, about 8 hours, he and Pavel had spent the entire time gutting and cleaning fish (almost 150), as well as keeping warm with liquid refreshments. I helped Mike finishing salting the fillets, which is essentially the only method of preserving them out here. By the time we finished, our fish dinner was ready and we dug in. Although the weather had turned to complete shit, the group was still in good spirits and we celebrated our good fortunes and our first week anniversary. Before the evening was over, a dance party had broke out, complete with strobe lights. If our morale were any higher we would suffocate from laughing so hard. - See the pictures!

The weather did not improve over night, and in fact got worse. Driving rain, near freezing temperatures, and lack of motivation kept most people sleeping late. Being a hydrologist, or least pretending to be a hydrologist, I felt obliged to start studying the effects of rainfall on stream height. So I began constructing a way to keep a pressure transducer (which measures stream height) fixed in the water without being washed away, as well as a way to anchor a cable across the outlet stream (about 20 m wide) so that I could tie a raft to it and measure a velocity cross section. In combination with precipitation gauges and lake level measurements, we can figure out how much of the rainfall makes it into the lake, how much stays there, and how much runs off.

This project took the better part of the day, even with Mike's help. By late afternoon the rain had stopped and the air had gotten warmer, but the wind was the big change. It had been increasing all day, and was now up to about 30 mph from the south, with gusts up to 45. Everyone was walking around taking pictures of the tents which had either collapsed or were in some stage of it. Even though the wind was strong, the air temperature was warm such that it was not at all uncomfortable to stand around outside. We took down about half of the tents, I took on some roommates inside the cabin, and others doubled up in tents.

It's early morning now, and I'm still in my sleeping bag. It's still too windy for Helga to start with the seismic work, though it is much less than last night. Hopefully I'll finish the cable anchors and get a velocity profile created today of the outlet, and maybe get the last of my equipment deployed. I brought two little met stations (temperature and precipitation) made by Onset that I want to put at different elevations. These are the same people that made the lake temperature/dataloggers that I put in the lake yesterday. They make really cheap, easy to use stuff. I wish they made anemometers, because I bet the winds were well over 60 mph in some of the passes. But such work will have to wait until next year. Now it's time for breakfast. Caviar again, no doubt...

August 18, 2000 Friday Lake E
Yesterday we got our first real break in the weather. It was calm and warm, with clear skies. Julie, Celeste, Olga Volodia, Grisha, and I headed off in the two zodiacs, while the Germans stayed behind and got Helga ready to begin seismic work. We headed off to the western side of the lake to check out the streams and geomorphology there. I made some discharge measurements of a few of the bigger ones while the others collected diatoms and soil samples. Later Julie, Grisha and I hiked backed to one of the small hills surrounding the lake to look for old shorelines and get a view. It was a very good day for getting work done. Once we returned to the boats, Julie, Celeste, Olga and Volodia headed back to camp to check on the progress of Helga, who we had not yet seen on the lake. Grisha and I headed back along shore and gaged all of the streams on the way back. We arrived back at camp about midnight to find that Helga had just left, after a full day of problems. It was a beautiful moonlit night, and I slept on the beach under the stars. - See the pictures!

Next day the weather was again perfect, and I got a small met station assembled to install on top of a hill to our west. Helga returned after an all night workout around 11AM, with some interesting news about the sediment and bedrock structure. Pavel, Mike, Grisha and I took off and climbed the hill, installed the equipment, and got a great view of the crater. - See the pictures!

When we returned we had a few hours of good weather before the north wind again dropped the temperatures and stirred up the lake into a small frenzy. So boat work is at least temporarily on hold again, and we hope for better weather in the morning.

************
Their hope won't come true. The weather forecast doesn't look too good. With temperatures just slightly above the freezing point the first snow of the season is predicted to fall on Saturday. - Peter
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August 20, 2000 Sunday Lake E
Boats. Engines. Waves. Cold Water. Cursing. I'm currently climbing a steep new learning curve.
For some reason, people here seem to have the impression I know something about piloting a boat. I'm not sure whether this says more about my ability to look like an all around capable kind of guy, or others' gullibility in believing that. But I've been driving a lot of boats lately, and haven't lost a passenger yet.

After my first trip driving against the waves last week, Mike and I went out to scope out the outlet stream to install a wire across it that would allow us to measure water velocities. We installed the wire anchor on the camp side of the stream first, then got in the boat to install it on the other side. On the way past the inlet I slowed to check out the water depth there. Julie's engine doesn't idle. If you're not moving it simply stalls. Normally this isn't a problem because usually one is trying to get somewhere in a boat. Typically it's not too hard to restart, but in this case it was a bit ornery. Normally this also isn't a problem, but the wind was blowing fairly hard from the south, meaning that we were quickly being blown out into the middle of the lake without an working engine. Fortunately Mike was able to paddle hard enough to keep us from losing ground (or water, in this case) while I worked on the engine. Eventually we made it to our destination.

Things went fairly well with the measurements at first, but quickly deteriorated. The wind was from the south and the outlet stream flows from the north. Along the transect we were trying to measure there were several large eddies that flow counter to the main stream motion. So basically no matter where we where something was trying to push us a different direction that we wanted to go. After an hour of frustration trying to make measurements we gave up and went for lunch and more people to help. This is when it got interesting.

Mike walked back to camp while I brought the boat out of the outlet and back to the place where we beach it on the lake. As I crossed into the lake I again slowed to look at the water depth there and stalled, and once again was rapidly being blown out to the middle of the lake. The transmission was stuck and I could not get it into neutral, which is necessary to get it started. This time there was no one to paddle in the meantime. So I simply gave up on the engine and paddled against the wind and waves. After lunch Julie came out with us and helped with the discharge measurements, making it much easier, though it was still fairly frustrating.

Several days later Mike and I deployed an instrument in the lake that measures lake level changes, and then had the bright idea to check out the stream again. This time the wind was from the north, and we just let the engine die out as we entered the stream and watched the sonar depths beneath us. Things went fairly smoothly until we tried to start the engine again. Because the stream was getting shallower with decreasing lake levels over the past week, we had to pay much closer attention to keeping the prop from hitting the bed. Eventually Mike had to get out and keep the boat pointed away from the banks to get the engine in deep enough water while I started it. We got it going and I headed upstream when the engine died again. I tried to start it, but quickly gave up because I was rapidly being washed away to Anadyr, several hundred kilometers away. Of course I would have been able to get to shore before then, but the river braids out and I'm sure gets too shallow for the motor, meaning I would have to walk it back. So I went for the paddles, but they had gotten tangled with the anchor lines. By the time I got them free and being controlling the boat again, I had gotten into shallow water and had to walk it back. At this point we just decided to walk it all the way back to the beach.

Today, Julie, Mike and I left to go to the north side of the lake, where I could deploy a small met station and do some stream gauging, while Julie and Mike collected slime samples. These two excursions to the stream and this trip to the north side of the lake are things we do when the weather is marginal and the more important work cannot be done because the water is too rough. I think we've pretty much discovered that almost anything in a boat cannot be done in this weather, which is any wind greater than 8 mph (i.e., not very often). We loaded the boat with my assembled met station and our personal gear, and pushed off into the waves. It was again a north wind, so Mike rowed out to keep us from being pushed back into the beach while Julie tried to get the motor going. After 5 minutes of taking on water in this fashion, I switched with Julie and pulled until my arm was numb. In addition to stalling, her engine is also difficult to start. But this was getting silly as we were slowly being sucked into the outlet. We beached the boat and began bailing out the water. As I emptied the water from my boots, I opened up the engine cowling just to make sure it was still in there and noticed that the spark plug wire had come off. I put it back on and pulled the cord once just for fun and it started right up. So we launched again and got underway. That's when things got interesting.

The waves were 1 to 2 foot high typically, with the occasional big one. This wasn't so bad, but our small rubber boat was jammed with sharp objects and lots of people. After bailing the water out, Mike moved to the front and we kind of settled in trying to keep the equipment away from the pontoons and our weight on the front end. We couldn't go fast enough to get up on step because we would catch too much air and come crashing down into the troughs, causing us to get old quickly. So we puttered along for 20 minutes or so, and began to think of good reasons to turn around. We came up with a number of them. We were all pretty much soaked, and driving into the wind in zero degree weather. It would take us at least another hour to get to where we wanted to go at this rate. The instruments were being destroyed by the pounding. Our tank was close to empty, meaning that we would need to mix oil into the spare tank, pour it into the main tank without getting water into it, and get the engine restarted. And there was a warm cabin not far away. So we turned around and surfed our way home. The whole thing was fairly comical really; at least we could seem to stop laughing at the time.

Back at camp I decided to take a few hours off and take care of some important business. I brought three stunt kites to the lake, knowing that there would also be plenty of wind there. Having already destroyed my two line kite, I brought out a four line one. I had quite a good time flying that until the wind got so strong that one of my lines snapped, causing me to tumble backwards almost into the lake. Now I only have one left. Afterwards I did laundry for the first time since Magadan, and hung my clothes to dry in the blowing snow.

Pavel's net yielded 11 fish this morning - one for each of us. Pavel, Olga and Volodia went for a hike to do some geomorphology and check out an archeological site, leaving us to prepare the fish. Mike and I devised a crude BBQ and began cooking. Until now all of the fish we've had has been deep fried, like almost everything else. So we were ready for a change. We cooked up more than half of them and served them up on some 4th of July plates I got for half price in Fairbanks, complete with matching cups and napkins, making it an authentic BBQ.

Today we also had our first serious discussions about rationing. We are running out of coffee, tea, and vodka. Since I don't drink much coffee or tea, I wasn't too concerned about it. But the vodka was a different story, because some of that was pretty hard won. Mike and I bought a case in Pevek the day before we left, and some low-lifes followed us out of the store and back towards our apartment. By the time we got the to front door, we were trotting up the four flights of stairs to get away from them. Fortunately our door was unlocked, and Mike got the vodka in while I got the door closed just in time. Unfortunately this door cannot be locked from the inside without the key. So I held the door handle and braced my foot against the wall while the jokers on the other side did the same in the other direction. Finally we got the door locked and went inside, where the others we discussing trip plans or doing computer work, oblivious to our little adventure. Oblivious that is until they cut the power to the apartment.

The wiring system in Pevek is a bit different than in the US. The fuse box is in the stairwell, and rather than run the wires through the walls, they tape them to walls and in through the door jamb, presumably so that they can be easily repaired. Being nerdy types, we pulled out our voltmeters and soldering irons and reattached the wires, though we were unable to get the phone working again. Brownouts were also fairly common in Pevek, and given the state of the infrastructure there, it seemed miraculous that the power worked at all. What was less understandable is why occasionally the lights would go out but the outlets would still be hot, or vice versa.

Power is also a challenge on the lake. All of us have laptops and instruments that need power. However, some of them need 120V, some 220V, and some 12V. We have a generator that puts out 220V and 30V. So it's somewhat convoluted getting things to work. My computer and satellite phone will run on either 120 or 220V, but this is only available when the generator is on. Otherwise, I hook an inverter to turn 12V DC into 120V AC, then plug in the units' transformers that turns 120V back into DC. However, this battery then needs to be charged occasionally. Unfortunately, the 12V charging output of the generator is actually 30V DC, which is way too high for these batteries. So I hook up my solar charge controller which turns 30V DC into 14.2V DC for battery charging. If it weren't for little challenges like these, we'd have to find someway to deal with the occasional dull moment. - See the pictures!

August 21, 2000 Monday Lake E
In rereading this I should say that although the stories I'm sharing may sound a bit untypical, nothing that has happened so far has been very scary. Everyone here is very safety conscious, and the vodka story is something that can happen anywhere (with minor corrections to alcohol type for a given location). I have felt much safer in Magadan and Pevek than most other US locations (except perhaps Fairbanks), and though the Lake is a bit cold at the moment, most things going on here are less dangerous than crossing a city street. I've attached some of the weather data I've been collecting, and basically the only calm water comes with wind speeds less than 8 mph. As can be seen, this happens infrequently. But we've maximized those windows and literally worked around the clock until bad weather returns. The seismic gear is all ready to be deployed at the next break, and given how good the previous efforts were, we now have a good idea of the underlying sediment and bedrock structures and can begin filling in the gaps. You'll have to wait until AGU, though, for the details.

I don't know who is actually reading this besides my parents and coworkers, but I understand that friends and family of other team members may be too, so I'll try to be a little less self-centered about my descriptions. Also, no one here is receiving or sending personal emails for the most part because of the difficulties in transmission, so if you have not received a reply from anyone, don't be concerned.

August 23, 2000 Wednesday Lake E
We got our break in the weather beginning Tuesday morning. We were up at 7 or so to start getting the boats and gear ready for a day on the lake. Three boats launched around 10 or 11 AM. All returned to shore within several hours for repairs of one sort or another. The real work did not begin finally until around 4 or 5.

The early morning plan was that Helga would go out with Frank, Connie and Bernd to do air gun seismic profiles and I would go in a zodiac to be Sono Buoy Boy. The buoys record seismic waves generated by the air gun, and get left at various locations while Helga drives about the lake making noise. Since Helga moves slowly, a zodiac can speed up the work by moving the sono buoy when necessary. It was a calm morning, but cold, with temperatures just above freezing. We got ourselves into position on the northern side of the lake, and made the first tests with the air gun. These did not go so well. Apparently it is fairly tempermental at temperatures below 5 degrees. After some cursing we turned around and headed back to camp to try another system out. I split off and visited Julie and Mike, who were doing some gravity coring off of the other zodiac. They were also doing a bit of swearing when I arrived.

Gravity coring works on a pretty basic principle. You lower a tube from the boat, you drop it when it is several meters from the bottom, then it falls into the mud, and finally you pull the tube - mud and all - back up to the boat. This requires several things for proper operation: gravity must be turned on that day, you must know the water depth, you must not be tangled in the rope when you let it drop, the core catcher must deploy when you pull it up else the core with fall out, and the sediments you want to core must be smaller than the diameter of the tube (that is, smaller than a pebble, and preferably sand and silt). Julie and Mike were having trouble meeting most of these requirements. - See the pictures!

Mike and I had built a contraption the night before that allowed the coring to be done from a zodiac instead of Helga, so that both seismic and coring could be done simultaneously during good weather. This contraption utilized an odometer designed to measure how much wire rope of a certain diameter was let overboard so that you would know where the instruments are. However, we used a different rope. Also, the sonar hooked to the boat had some problems with alignment of the beam, so it's depths were not always accurate. What this boils down to is that it was very easy to misjudge depth, and bump the unit into the bottom (deploying the core catcher) before dropping it, meaning that you have to start over again. But after some improvements to the equipment and the technique, they were able to get a good core, and we drove both boats back to shore, where the Helga was being refitted with equipment.

My main accomplishment that morning was photographing the air gun at work (well, sort of working) and the sediment coring in action. But it was a still a calm sunny day, and I had lots of my own work to do. So as the seismic and sediment coring teams headed off, I got my stream gauging stuff together and prepared to head off with Celeste to the north side of the lake. I took a while in leaving because the pins on my pcmcia slots had gotten bent so that I could not download the pictures in my digital camera. This was somewhat of a trick to repair, but I got them straightened out enough to insert the card. By the time I had my boat loaded, Julie and Mike returned with a broken sonar. Shortly thereafter Helga returned with a broken GeoChirp (another seismic system). So it was another hour or two of repairs on the beach before we all got going again. But eventually things got working again, and we all shoved off by about 5pm.

Despite the late start, it was a fairly successful day. The seismic team came up with a number of new profiles with a high resolution system, finding some very interesting features. The sediment corers completed much of a transect of cores into deeper and deeper water. Celeste got her diatoms and slime from the north side of the lake. And I gauged and photographs most of the streams on the north side, as well as deployed the small met station I tried to get over there several days before. We all met back at camp at roughly the same time, that is, when it was too dark to see.

These types of problems are simply endemic to field work, especially geophysical field work that requires lots of equipment. Most equipment simply is not designed to be rugged enough to ship long distances via boat, cargo plane, and helicopter, and is difficult to make work in the cold. But making them work is one of the more satisfying parts of field work to me. I try to bring as many tools, hardware, and raw building materials (wood, metal, etc.) as I can so that I can have some chance at dealing with the unexpected, like building a sediment coring platform for a zodiac, or an anchoring system for a stream gauge, etc. That level of construction is the funnest for me. Connie really gets into the chip and resistor level electronics. Between us we've got most everything covered.

Today started off kind of slowly as the wind had picked up, allowing us to recover a bit from the night before. In the morning a herd of caribou came close to camp, so Pavel and Volodia headed off to try to invite one for dinner. We all watched from camp as they made their way towards them. Unfortunately all we have here is a shotgun, making it necessary to get very close to get a good shot. They were unable to get close enough before the herd ran off. After lunch, Julie, Mike and I gauged the outlet stream again. Between lowering water levels and a north wind, as well as a little experience, this procedure went very smoothly. Afterwards they headed off for some more coring, but turned around because the water was too rough for it. I then went off with Grisha to check out the last few streams I hadn't seen. Frank, Connie, and Bernd headed off with Helga to finish the high resolution seismic work. We all got back around 8 pm. - See the pictures!

August 24, 2000 Thursday Lake E
The mood is noticeably more relaxed in camp. All of us now have enough data such that we could leave and be happy about it. And leaving is something that is on everyone's mind, judging from conversation. I received information from Peter today on when the Mavial flights from Magadan to Anchorage are planned: September 12 and September 21. I think everyone would like to make the September 12 plane. This depends, however, on us getting off the lake and back to Pevek, then getting from Pevek to Magadan before then. We would like to continue working for another week so that we can accomplish everything that we came to do, then leave the following week. This puts us at next Thursday, leaving three days to pack before Monday the 4th. Nothing flies here on weekends, so we need to get the helicopter and cargo plane flights sometime between Monday and Friday of that week. This same trip took us a month in the other direction. If not, we staying in Magadan for another week because I think there is little chance of getting the cargo plane on Monday and catching the Mavial flight on Tuesday. But who knows.

The weather here has been mostly clear and calm for the past several days. Pressure is still high and rising, and there seems to be a large high pressure moving our way. So perhaps this weather will hold out for several more days. The air gun is now working, and tomorrow I will again become Sono Buoy Boy while the Germans ride their Viking barge around the lake. Hopefully it will be another successful day.

I spent much of the day hiking around several valleys that I'm thinking of instrumenting on the next trip. It is very beautiful here, I think. The hiking is fairly easy, and the views are great (depending on weather). The rest of the day I worked on the computer, looking at data, creating wiring diagrams, etc. I'm averaging about 40 pictures per day. Digital cameras make it cheap and easy. - See the pictures! - See more pictures! - See yet more pictures!

Julie, Mike and Bernd went off on the Helga today continue with the gravity coring. The Helga has a large winch system (a real version of the contraption I made) and one can walk around on it, so the deeper cores were much easier to take. Pavel, Grisha, Olga, and Volodia went off to the east side of the lake to look at the rocks and hunt for artifacts. Connie actually had some free time today and made dinner. He's been the hardest working guy here.

Although we've had a longer trip than planned, everyone is still in very good spirits. I think it's worked out well once again that the people that make it on these trips are largely ones that stay in good spirits under these conditions. It would suck to be trapped here with people that are no fun or are always complaining. But I really enjoy the company of everyone here. (Note to Peter, please delete this: Actually I HATE their guts and I cant wait to get away from them. If I ever start talking about going on expedition again, please shoot me.)* (Note from Peter: I immigrant, English no good, do not understand what want from me.)

Everyone is talking about going back home to 20 and 30C temperatures. It probably will be winter when I get back to Fairbanks, especially if we take the later flight.

August 28, 2000 Monday Lake E
Success.

The problem with the sonobuoy was repaired with the kind of ingenuity that makes field work fun. Connie brought with him a radio-like device about the size of a large chocolate bar that he hooks to his computer. The software on his computer can be used to tune this radio to receive on any frequency, and output to speakers or whatever. The 'whatever' in this case is important because the broken link in the sonobuoy equipment was the receiver that listens for the sonobuoy signals and links them into the seismic system. So with a few hours fussing around with wires and programs, he was able to convert his radio into a piece of seismic equipment. Once this was working, the Helga shoved off and steamed for first point of the transect.

I was to follow in the zodiac once again as Sono Buoy Boy. It was at this point that I realized that Grisha is slowly going insane. I asked him if he could give me a hand for five minutes to help me shove off. He said something like, "Yes, eets no prublum. I has five minoots to put boat in vahter. Five minoots take boat out vahter. Five minoots in. Five minoots out. I have all day. I have nine day to put boat in vahter. Eets absolutely no prublum." Basically all the Russians have run out of things to do.

We got to our destination and the first sono buoy was deployed and confirmed as working. Then came the critical part, would the airgun work as well? Pressure was applied, it seemed to hold, and gun was dropped in for the final smoke test. A few shots were taken while Frank studied the pressure valves. Then he gave a bit of a smile and a thumbs up, and we were off.

Though the waves at shore were fairly big, by the time we got underway the wind had died down and there was only a mild chop. The water here is the deepest blue I've seen, and in calm water is almost intoxicating to look at. I waited at the end of the transect to give the Helga something to move towards, so I had some time. I remember being struck with the thought that I was inside a crater. We all know this is a crater, but I've become used to thinking of it as a feature within a larger landscape. When you think of it as a rim and look at it from the inside, the magnitude of the impact needed to create it becomes closer to tangible.

After a while I pulled out my romance novel and read a few chapters. I was dozing pleasantly when all of a sudden I heard a large SLAP against the water immediately followed by a wall of water landing on me. I looked over just in time to see a flash of blond hair followed by a large tail with a split end diving vertically into the water. I could only follow it down for a second because when I looked up, Frank was frantically waving his arms trying to get me to go to the side of the transect they had just come from to get the buoy and bring it back to this side. So I can't say for sure what it was. May just have been some bad borsht at lunch.

In any way, I gunned it for the east side of the lake to retrieve the buoy. These buoys only have a 5 or 6 hour battery life, and the batteries cannot be replaced or recharged (at least not without a lot of creative energy), so we need to use their life to maximum advantage. I grabbed the buoy and headed back. Once deployed, I needed to head back to where I had just grabbed it to again give the Helga something to aim for. So I gunned it and pulled a Miami Vice style 180 around the front side of the moving Helga to get going. This works quite effectively on TV where they have professional stunt men, speed boats, and lots of smoke and mirrors. On Lake El'gygytgyn with a 18 foot zodiac powered by a 15 horsepower Honda, it leaves something to be desired. In any way, once the propellor stopped cavitating, leaving me stalled broadside in front of the oblivious Helga, I got underway and headed for the far end of the lake. I stayed awake this time, but dry as well.

By the time we started the north/south transect, the wind had picked up again from the north. We deployed the second buoy on the north end and headed south. By the time the Helga reached me on the south side, the waves were breaking a bit and 1 to 2 feet high. I gunned it for the north side, crashing through the waves. There's something about doing such things that makes one feel like your accomplishing something. I can see why people can spend their whole life at sea, because it's actually a lot of fun. That is, until you realize your boat is sinking.

I'm not sure which came first, the floor boards coming loose or the pontoons deflating, but in any case the front end began doubling back at right angles when I hit into the waves. It wasn't getting worse particularly rapidly, so I kept on working; I don't like messing with such things far from shore, because there is potential to make them worse. I grabbed the buoy and headed south again, and deployed it at their location. Then headed north again to help them with navigation. Then we repeated this switch once more so that we could get one more north to south profile. This time coming north I drove slower, but things still bounced around quite a bit. By the time I reached them on the north side, the cables from the two different buoys had become snarled. I tried to untangle them for a bit, but it was beginning to seem hopeless. At this point I heard Frank yell above the roar of the compressor, generators, and waves, 'Matt - just throw all of that shit into the water', which made some sense. So I threw both buoys (only one was turned on) into the water, snarl and all. I picked them up a short time later and headed home. By this time the front pontoons were noticeably sagging and not doing well even in the same direction as the waves. So I kept it just below step for much of the way back to keep the front end up in the air. Essentially I did a wheelie all the way back.

The news of our success, combined with the diminishing supply of vodka, seem to spark some interest in a celebration back at camp. So we ate well and had some drinks. Pavel and I shared a few party tricks with the group, and we had music and Christmas lights going on the veranda. In the morning we woke up to a snow covered landscape. - See the pictures!

Today we had another successful day. Bernd, Connie and Mike went out on the Helga to complete the sediment coring. They were able to obtain several cores in the deepest parts of the lake. Julie and I went out to download the data from the thermistor string in the middle of the lake and to prepare it for winter. This turned out to be something of a challenge.

To anchor this string to the bottom, I used an abandoned half-axle from a tank that was laying in the scrap pile. It weighed probably 40 kg. Imagine trying to pull this up through 170 m of water without a winch. We eventually commandeered the Helga and its crew to help lift it out. Once this was done, they went back to coring and we downloaded the data. Then things got interesting.

When we deployed it the first time, we had two rubber boats, one at each end. This prevented the line from getting snarled underwater. This time we had only one boat. We stretched it out as good as we could, but it kept trying to follow us, so eventually we just tossed the anchor overboard and hoped for the best. We watched as one by one the floats got sucked under, until finally the last float in the line went under too. This one was supposed to stay above water. A snarl in the line had made the line shorter.

About this time the Helga returned from sediment coring and we again got their assistance. We drove around a bit looking into the water, trying to locate the uppermost buoy. Then by lowering a rope weighted by an anchor, we were able to wrap that line around the thermistor string enough times such that it attached itself well enough that we could lift it out of the water. This lifting caused the snarl to undue itself and the float returned to the surface. This float was then removed (it was just there to mark the location) so that the upper most float was again several meters below water. This is by design, so that the lake ice that will form later will not grab the buoy and drag the string around in the spring, when the ice gets blown by the wind. So that project being done, we headed off for home. There we were treated to homemade French bread from Celeste, fresh fish from Pavel, and pasta from Frank.

Tomorrow we need to make some decisions about when we will leave. It will take us several days to pack. The earliest we could leave is Friday, if tomorrow was our last working day. But it seems likely that we can get only one flight out in a day, which means that half of us and the stuff would need to wait until Monday. If the first flight was on Monday, we would have a few extra days to work here. Some want to begin leaving as soon as possible, and some would rather wait. In the real world, getting from the lake to Magadan before the 12th would be no problem, but this isn't the real world.

I find it hard to believe we've only been here three weeks, and harder to believe we've gotten so much done. Any more work that we do here would be gravy, the meat and potatoes is finished. Unfortunately there is no longer any vodka to accompany the meal, so maybe leaving earlier is not such a bad idea.

August 29, 2000 Tuesday Lake E
It's over.

The pressure dropped from our record high to our record low in a day, accompanied by strong winds, rough seas, and snow. With their being no forecast for improved weather, we decided that we would begin wrapping up research and packing our boxes. - See the pictures!

But there was some concern today about another fuel shortage in Pevek. Apparently the tanker bearing the year's supply of fuel for Pevek actually made it and delivered the fuel, but it seems there was some question about the quality of the fuel. That is, it was not good enough for larger planes. After trying unsuccessfully to contact the airport all day via satellite phone, we called Yuri in the evening and found that he had already arranged everything, including fuel. So weather permitting, a helicopter will arrive Friday morning bearing Yuri and will leave bearing half our group. If all goes as planned, the helicopter will return later that day to clear us all out. This, of course, leaves us with a weekend (or two?) in Pevek, which is not so bad considering weekends in Pevek can actually be a lot of fun. - See the pictures!

Hopefully by the time I leave Magadan I will only have my personal stuff and a few tools. Everything else is either installed at the lake or I will give away as presents. It just doesn't pay to ship a shovel back at $4/kg.

September 4, 2000 Monday Lake E
Autumn at El'gygytgyn came on a Monday, last week, in the afternoon. Winter is here, with snow accumulating in drifts behind all the little tufts of grass and anything else stuck to the ground. Packing went slowly because of the bad weather. By Friday, our intended date of departure, there was still stuff strewn about the place not yet boxed, but it didn't really matter. The ceiling was low and showed no signs of improving. We called the Pevek airport in the morning and they told us to call back at noon in case the weather changed. This we did, and they told us to have a nice weekend. Several minutes after hanging up, the weather changed and we were treated to clear skies and calm wind for the weekend.

Connie, anticipating the familiar pattern of bad-weather-for-flight-days routine, had already rigged up the zodiac with several computers, dataloggers, sonar, etc., and set out with Bernd for a trip around the shoreline of the lake after lunch on Friday. The rest of us milled about, straightening things up, writing our AGU abstracts, etc. I started a new book that many of the others had already read called Kolyminsky Heights, about a scientist being chased out of this region of Russia by the military. He went through all of the towns we were familiar with, and tried to make his escape by skiing across the frozen Bering Straights. We'd have to use a boat this time of year. - See the pictures!

Most of us thought that we would be writing our abstracts in the comfort of our own offices, the expedition having long been over. But the deadline for submittal is only a few days away, and there's some chance we wont even be off the lake before they are due. I called back to UAF and had David Stone read off all of the different sessions being offered (several hundred) to see if we could find one that we could all submit to. It turned out that one of them was being run by a colleague from Fairbanks, so I gave him a call to see whether our work with fit well with his theme. He seemed to think so, and was also very familiar with the problems of doing things like from the field. So he wished us luck and we began tailoring our abstracts to suit the theme. This when things got interesting.

Connie and I both brought satellite phones, and both should be capable of email. In reality only his worked, at least up until the moment that we really needed it. So I called Peter and asked him to round up a tape recorder so that we could dictate them to him the next day. In the meantime Connie and I both tried to get the fax capabilities of the phones working. He eventually succeeded by Saturday evening, and we faxed all of our abstracts to Helga (the namesake of the AWI barge), who will hopefully receive them Monday morning and then fax them to our friends who will transcribe and submit them for us. It seemed like it worked, but it's not clear yet.

I have most of my stuff consolidated now, though I keep finding things in various rooms. The cabin is of typical northern construction, with rooms being glommed on through the years to create a sprawling mess. To get to most rooms, one has to exit the building and walk around to another exterior door to get there. I probably spend an hour a day walking around the building to look into different rooms to get what I need. Of course everyone else has things spread about (though I'm probably the worst), and so we are all very familiar with each other's stuff and where it might be located on this day.

Mike and I spent some time repairing the exterior from a year or two's abuse by the weather and animals. The caribou seem to be fond of chewing on the corners of the cabin, causing the covering to come off in large chunks. The entire place is covered in some sort of material that is very similar to what the zodiacs are made out of. We found some more of this stuff lying about and cut it into patches, which we nailed up with scraps of wood and nails, which were also lying about. It's weather tight now, but gives the place more of the trailer park atmosphere than it used to have. The entire cabin had been painted an olive drab at some point, including the fabric and the wood that held it on. It is a very nice place really, and was spotlessly clean when we found it. Hopefully we can leave in that state when we go.

Leaving soon might not be such a bad thing. We are now out of most condiments, which is not so bad since we are out of most food. We still have plenty of muesli and kasha, as well as macaroni. The fish are as plentiful as ever and there's plenty of water for the drinking, so there's no danger of starvation here, just lack of variety. But a much more serious problem developed over the weekend.

The typical group dynamics regarding consumption here is a microcosm of the way things work in real world. We eat or drink or use up everything as if it came from a magic box that has no bottom. Only it does have a bottom and eventually the box is empty. This happened first with the coffee and tea, then the vodka, Tabasco, juice packets, cocoa, and rice. But it has now happened with the toilet paper.

For the time being, Mike has taken to hack sawing the rolls of paper towels into thirds, and signs have been placed in the outhouse encouraging thrift, but I think with little effect. I made the bold move to ask how many paper towels were left, but was met with blank stares. Fortunately I have a reserve TP cache of my own. Mountain money. Worth more than rubles (at least the coins, the paper...)

Speaking of reserve caches, my private alcohol cache is now empty (except for the flask of Azerberjan cognac that is needed for the helicopter flight). It began last night with a bottle of champagne and a toast to our successful research and our hopefully successful trip home. It ended four bottles of vodka later. The way I see it, no sense dribbling it out a bottle at a time, because 10 people make short work of half a liter and without much affect. And it was a good chance to celebrate our forth week on the lake and second month on the trip; better I think to celebrate than to cry.

I pulled out my computer and we had a little slideshow, where someone would ask what were we doing on such and such a date, and I'd show the digital pictures from that day. Connie had already burned CDs for the group of all my pictures up until that point, but I had taken many more since and he wanted a copy. The way we did this the last time was he gave me a flash card to insert into my pcmcia slots and I copied them over. Somehow this managed to bend the pins deeps inside my computer last time, which was a source of some inconvenience to fix. He was a bit nervous about reinserting it lest it damage his card. So when he gave it to me, I'm palmed it and pretended it got stuck. Then I smashed it in with several loud slaps causing him to start in alarm and say in german, 'my god are you mad?' I showed that the card was in my other hand, prompting much laughter and a long lesson in German slang, and a 'Met, dis wuz vverry goot joke ere'.

By this time, with the helicopter due in less than 10 hours, the anticipated change in weather occurred and we were treated to fog. We made the call to Pevek at 9AM, shortly after the bus arrives at the airport, to find out that the weather really didn't make a difference since the helicopter was broken. Pavel has a Russian saying about this. 'If wants to leave, then not goods vetha.. If goods vetha, then not heleecopter. If heleeocopter, then not fewel. If fewel and heleecopter and goods vetha, then pilots drunken. Eez teepeekal'. Alledgedly another helicopter from Anadyr is being flown to Pevek as temporary replacement.

The mood in camp has subtly, yet noticeably, changed from optimism to pessimism regarding leaving. This comes through in the nature of the stories being shared, about who waited for transport the longest on previous expeditions, who has been on the longest expedition, etc. Spirits are still high, though energy is pretty low. With the equipment packed or installed, the abstracts sent off, the cabin repaired, there's not much to do besides write emails that may never be sent, reduce data, bake bread, sleep, read, bandage wounds, etc. This, as much as anything else, typifies my experiences with Russian expeditions, hurry up and wait, hurry up and wait, hurry up and wait ...

September 8, 2000 Friday Pevek - Lake E
Tuesday we learned that the weather in Anadyr was too bad for flying.

Wednesday we got confirmation that the helicopter was taking off shortly to pick us up, only to find out several hours later that it did indeed take off but to pick someone else up.

Thursday we had pretty much resigned ourselves to a life on the lake, planning out our winter activities, public works projects, etc., when just as the borsht was ready to eat a helicopter dropped from the sky. Those quick enough hopped on, while the rest were left to eat beet soup. Now Julie, Frank, Mike, Grisha, Olga, Volodya, and I are recovering in Pevek while Bernd, Connie, Celeste and Pavel are out on the lake, probably warmer than we are. There is still no hot water or heat in Pevek, except in the public showers. I'm writing this while sitting on the floor of an empty apartment wearing my expedition clothes. - See the pictures! - See more pictures!

The trip was smooth and uneventful. We flew low to the ground beneath the clouds, and got excellent views of the Siberian Arctic in fall. The topography changed from mountain valleys to flat, polygonal tundra, and finally into the crumbling infrastructure of Pevek. We were greeted at the airport by Yuri, as expected, who filled Mike and I in on the fun we've missed at the local bar over the past month. He also apparently tried to make it out to the lake several times, but couldn't due to bad weather.

After an obligatory trip to the local banya for unlimited hot water showers, we had dinner at Misha's flat and showed slides of the trip using my computer. The next day's activities were planned out, including a second helicopter trip to get everyone else, a meeting with the town mayor, and sending off some emails. So far today, Friday, the second flight has been put on hold until the afternoon due to weather, the mayor got too wasted last night so the meeting was put off until the afternoon, but if you're reading this I guess the email worked. I hope that guy sobers up by the afternoon because I spent a few hours this morning culling the pictures into a comprehensible slide show, including data and movies.

So it looks for sure that we will spend this weekend in Pevek. It is not clear yet whether we will spend more than one. We have a cargo plane chartered (from a different company this time), but they want a day's notice to come, and that's after everyone and everything is in Pevek. So the earliest would be Monday to Magadan. This gets us in just in time for the flight to Anchorage on Tuesday the 12th. If we miss that, we will be stuck in Magadan until the next flight on the 21st of September.

On the bright side, it looks like our AGU abstracts made it. Because our satellite phone email was down, we tried faxing them to Germany. From there they were faxed again to our home institutions, where friendly people typed them up and submitted them on-line to the meeting convenors. Hopefully we will make it out of here in time for the meeting (December 15). Perhaps copies of the abstracts will show up on this web page [Peter?].

September 11, 2000 Monday En Route
Just a quick note: Everyone made it to Magadan. ETA in Anchorage is 0505 hours Tuesday the 12th of September. -Peter

September 13, 2000 Wednesday Fairbanks
“No wone likes wodka. Only rezalt.”
-Grisha Federov, September 2000

Eventually the second helicopter showed up, and we all spent the weekend in Pevek. This was on a Friday.

We had our meeting with the mayor on this day. I provided a small Powerpoint slideshow for the event, and they of course provided the toasts of champagne and vodka. I later learned that this man was not the mayor but the deputy mayor. He was a geologist in a former life and was very attentive and friendly. Yuri cut out early to head to the lake with the helicopter going to pick up Bernd, Connie, Celeste and Pavel. My understanding was that he was just going out for the trip and returning with them, but it turned out that he stayed there along with the real mayor and the guy who is apparently the head of Fish and Game of that region. These guys were complete assholes who showed up to the lake drunk and caused some trouble, but more about that later.

After tying one on with the deputy mayor, Grisha, Mike, Frank and I headed over to the meteorological institute to send a few emails and catch up with those guys. The people of Chukotka, particularly the scientists, are some of the most fantastic people one could hope to meet. We hung out with them for a while, told them about our success, and discussed future proposals, etc. They download the all of the US NOAA weather satellite data, so they burned a CD for me off all that data for the summer (quite a score), along with a lot of historic data of weather and water discharge from the river that the lake eventually hooks up with. The price for all of this data was, of course (`ki-eshna') several bottles, which, ki-eshna, were consumed on the spot, along with some food and target practice. This event touched me perhaps the most fondly of any interactions I've had with the people there. - See the pictures!

Pevek is a remote outpost. It always has been. With the end of communism, one by one many of these remote towns have withered away for lack of money and fuel. Pevek is one of the last remaining in this area. The scientists there get paid shit, but remain true to their profession. They have no automatic recording equipment for weather data. They buy the lowest resolution satellite data for lack of funds. But they still manage to get some job done.

As I may have wrote before, Pevek has a severe fuel shortage problem. They rely entirely on tanker shipments of fuel to power their electricity and heating, but these shipments are few and far between. Sea ice is a major obstacle to this delivery. Their only means of checking sea ice conditions is to fly by helicopter or airplane several hundred kilometers to visually inspect it. This is not only expensive (requiring much fuel in itself), but has resulted in many crashes and deaths in the recent past because sea ice conditions must be checked in the worst of weather conditions. As an American PI, I can get high resolution satellite data that works through cloud cover virtually for free. When I showed them samples of this data, they just about cried. Next year I plan to provide them with sea ice conditions in near real time, though its not exactly clear at this point how to get the data to them.

Grisha is good friends with these people. Thanks to one of them, Andrey, we got a second flight to the lake on our way in after the weather turned sour, because he is the one that signs the forms at the airport. Another guy named Dima is the lead scientist on sea ice monitoring, and was actually the guy in the helicopter that took off to check on it the day we wanted that helicopter to get to the lake. His wife is the woman that does the local weather forecasting for the Pevek area and, after it passes through several hands, I received this forecast from Peter, who downloaded it off the internet, via satellite phone nearly every day. Truly a small world here.

The bar in Pevek was surprisingly empty Friday night, as if we were the only people who didn't know the September schedule for partying. So Mike, Grisha and I had a few drinks and caught up a little on sleep. Saturday evening we had a group celebration at Misha's apartment. It was our first reunion since leaving the lake, and was much fun. That night, Grisha, Julie, Mike, and I and went off to the bar to find it packed, and met many old friends. We met the daughter of the deputy mayor, who informed us that our assessment of the real mayor was correct. We hung out with our airport friends, the local cops, and a bunch of new and old acquaintances. I don't think I've ever had as much fun in an American bar.

Sunday we got together with folks at the Geological Institute to let them know about our trip. We've had many meetings with these people over the last several years. It's funny, though entirely expected, that after a while of meeting people you no longer feel like an outsider. I again showed the same slideshow that I gave to the deputy mayor, and they again provided the vodka and champagne, but it was qualitatively different this time. Sunday is men's day at the banya (the sauna place). It was slightly after noon when we arrived there and the banya closed in a few hours. I was actively being heckled to hurry up so that we could walk down the street and sweat with the rest of town before the placed closed. Such is life among friends in Pevek.

That night the head of the institute invited us to his flat for dinner (which turned out to be one floor above the flat we were staying in), and this turned out to be our last dinner as a complete group. His wife is Korean, and we ate many delicious foods, including much game meats, as well as the required amount of vodka. Julie had prepared awards for each person, recognizing and appreciating their individual talents. I read most of a poem that I had been working on that chronicled the trip to that point; the rest will have to wait a few days to complete. The evening ended without injury, and was accompanied by many Russian songs.- See the pictures!

Monday our cargo plane arrived. This plane was not run by the Fly-by-Night Company of Chukotka, but by a company that actually secured the load within the plane and asked us to fasten our seatbelts (!). Although we (NSF!) paid for the plane to be loaded by this company, Mike and I helped out because the loaders had become friends of ours and it was nice to hang out with them. I encouraged them to walk off with things like our empty fuel canisters and the like that cost more to ship than to buy new, and I know they will make good use of these gifts for years to come (if there's fuel around, that is).

Julie met with the airport chief to pay for our fuel and other assorted bills, and I hung out a bit afterwards with this guy to pass on a few messages. Because Yuri was still at the lake, I didn't have the chance to say goodbye to him. I left my leather hat with the chief to pass on to Yuri, because I know he liked it. With Pavel translational help, I also passed on few other thoughts. When the mayor and his buddy showed up at the lake, they told Pavel that if he didn't leave our boats, motors and tents, that they would not let them return to Pevek. They said that Frank had said it was OK to give them this equipment. Pavel, assessing both their blood alcohol content and their inner nature, did not believe this and refused to give it to them. So they decided apparently to let them go if they left Celeste behind. Fortunately this was also denied and everyone got out. Yuri apologized and explained, when these guys had stumbled off, that he was essentially a hostage too. Yuri and these two other guys were due to come back to Pevek the same day (Monday) that we were leaving. I explained in no uncertain terms to the airport chief, a very nice man, that if their helicopter arrived back in Pevek before we took off that he should have an ambulance or coroner standing by. He held up the departure of the helicopter and we left for Magadan without incident.

That is, all of us except Grisha. Typically a plane leaves Pevek on Mondays for Moscow. Grisha had intended to get on this plane, but unfortunately it did not show up this day. Apparently the company had not the money to purchase the fuel needed to get to Pevek. It was hoped that by Wednesday or Thursday that it would show up. So we said our tearful goodbyes to him, and wished him the best of luck for getting home to his family.

The remainder of the group arrived safe and sound in Magadan Monday evening. There were several trucks waiting to haul our gear back into town, and after the usual several hours of blah blah blah we left. Once at the institute, we unloaded. It is another different and touching thing about science in Russia that helping us unload at ten at night were senior scientists at the institute. In the US, you would be lucky to get the help of graduate students for such an endeavor. But here they were, late at night, guys that Pavel has worked with for twenty years or more, schlepping 4 tons of gear around for our benefit.

The plane for Anchorage was to leave early the next morning, so we only had a few hours between landing that night and taking off next day. We had a mad scramble to unload, sort, and repack within the institute (due to customs requirements, there was no way to take everything, so we had to just get our personal stuff and whatever else we could). I gave away everything that I thought could be useful there, and would be cheaper to buy new here rather than ship. Things like 5 gallon buckets and tupperwares were the biggest hits. Once more or less settled, we headed out to a local restaurant for a final farewell dinner. - See the pictures!

This was our first time at this place, and by far the most expensive (mein god, almost $30 per person!). It seemed to me that they were closing when we arrived, but they had no qualms about feeding us so late at night. It was total four star service and food. Loads of silver ware, glass ware, and another and another. The food was unbelievably delicious and well prepared, and live music showed up. Truly surreal after so long in the field. After many fun, dancing, and a decent sword fight, I escaped with only minor injuries (temporary immolation, one stabbing, and a pretty good hangover) about on par for most nights out and with the rest of the group.

Tuesday came and went and came again as we crossed the dateline, and the entire remainder of the group (with about a ton of cargo) arrived safely in Anchorage about nine at night. Since we were so rushed getting out of Russia, we had nothing lined up as for places to stay or means of transporting and storing the gear. So after several more hours of blah blah blah we ended up at a place to sleep and celebrated once more. All of us except Mike that is, who caught the next flight out of town and back to civilization, sports scores, and T-shirt collections.

I think that Tuesday came once more again because we said goodbye to Connie last night, and tonight is Wednesday (actually Thursday at this moment). We also took care of much of the freight on this day, accompanied by the required amount of blah blah blah in several languages. Although we are all quite familiar with the routine and happy to wish people well on their way to the next adventure, it's still sad to say goodbye, and finally realize that yes, the trip is actually ending.

Bernd left early the next morning (today?). Julie and I dealt with a some unresolved freight screwups involving the joker that we hired during our departure nearly two months ago, then got a bite to eat and checked out the Anchorage museum which had an exhibit on Russian exploration of Alaska.

I've been to several exhibitions like these before, where they talk about ancient scientists and how they went about things. But this one was special. Part of this special-ness was to due with the fact that these were Russian scientists, but more I think was to due with the fact that they were simply scientists working under the harshest conditions, making our hardships seem like a day at the shopping mall without a cart. Some of these guys traveled on foot from Moscow to the eastern coast of Siberia, built themselves an ocean-going ship, and sailed into the unknowns of the North Pacific to see what was there. Some found America, others Japan. They charted the coastlines, documented the flora and fauna (without digital cameras!), discovered new ocean currents, and another and another. They drew watercolors of the birds and plants by candlelight in 10 feet swells. They fought with Indians, they died of scurvy. They had adventure.

And here were their field books, just like ours, opened to some page, written while wet and hungry, after several years in the field. Their day to day life had the same problems as ours did. Dead tired, hungry, no place to store stuff or to work, missing their homes, arguing over priorities for the expedition, wondering whether the vodka would hold out, etc. Our experience, though new to us, is a story that has been told many times, in many languages. This complete insanity that we call our job has a long history. And though we can never meet these long dead heroes, we know they would be our good friends. One expedition boiled down to a single day of field work for a four year trip, yet they got what they were after. These few moments of discovery are what make the chaos and heartache worth it. That and the bonding that occurs between individuals thrown into such circumstances. All I have written to this point is literally just the tip of the iceberg, and while it may give a flavor of our experience, I am not a good enough writer (nor am I a willing enough snitch) to describe the minutia that makes an expedition what it really is.

Another exhibit in the museum was that of a photographer who was tragically killed by a bear on a photographic exhibition. I think that his words sum up one of the contradictions of field work better than I could.

"A number of years ago I noticed clusters of forget-me-nots, the Alaska state flower, growing at our base camp along the coast of the Arctic Ocean. They quietly opened their pale blue petals, indifferent to the fact that they might not be seen in this remote spot.
"At that time I was accompanied by a television crew who were filming a nature program. For a number of reasons [no need to explain] the filming was progressing slowly, while the days went racing by [ditto]. I understood all too well their anxiety about completing this program, but everyone was so consumed with this worry that I felt they weren't really seeing the nature at all. This tense atmosphere began to concern me, and I decided to take the director aside for a chat.
"Look, you've done your best, I told him, but your subject is nature, so you can't expect everything to go as you plan. When you look back at this experience ten or twenty years later, it probably won't matter a great deal whether you were able to get excellent footage for this program or not. Rather than spending all your time fretting about the quality of the footage, wouldn't it be worthwhile to put aside a little time each day - even just fifteen or thirty minutes - to forget your work, and observe closely that flowers are blooming, the wind is blowing, that you are camping on the edge of the vast Arctic Ocean. After all, this isn't the kind of place you can come to anytime, and it would be a shame to let this experience go by unnoticed. I felt that the forget-me-nots nodding in the breeze were saying the same thing - that the time we can live is not in the past, not in the future, but right now in the present.
" Even if the result of the filming was not what we originally envisioned, the time spent in this place was real. And, the ultimate meaning of our experience lay not in the result, but in that valuable segment of time during which we lived in this spot. The touch of the Arctic wind caressing my cheeks, the sweet smell of the Arctic tundra, the pale light of these summer nights, clusters of forget-me-nots, so small as to be easily overlooked - I want to stand still, compose myself, and record this landscape in the memory of my five senses. I want to value these moments that flow by without producing anything at all. I always want to know in my heart that there is another kind of time flowing by in parallel with the hectic conduct of man's daily life."

Though I am home only an hour or two, I already miss terribly the company of my friends and those moments we shared together.

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September 14, 2000 Thursday Fairbanks
Well, I've had more sleep in the last ten hours than I've had in past four days, literally. I barely remember typing those notes last night, and in rereading them I can see my brain wasn't working to its fullest capacity. This may well be my last entry, as the expedition is just about over for me. I'm bracing myself for a return to office life, and a new type of insanity. I logged in briefly to my email account to find that I had over 400 messages waiting for me. I would as soon take a zodiac through 3 m swells than wade into that.

But I have to face up to it soon, because I've already been spotted in town. It was silly to think that I could sneak back in. Even in Anchorage airport I met two people I knew getting on the plane. And when I arrived in Fairbanks I met two more, including one person from my office and another who was in the field in Alaska with much of the rest of the office this summer. But this small-worldness is what makes Fairbanks a special place to live. I bummed a ride home and found my house still standing.

Several changes occurred since my departure. My truck and trailer are gone. I now own a microwave (the dumpster diving variety). I also own one of those things you put dishes in to dry. I suspect a party or two occurred here as the place is very clean and the disco ball and lights are in their upright and locked position. There are several notes lying about saying thanks for letting me stay here. There is also much postal mail here for me, sorted into piles labeled "matt's mail" and "matt's junk mail". On the exterior, what few birch cling to life in my yard have bright yellow leaves. The woodshed still has some wood (and it was nice to hear it crackle again in my stove last night). I'm hoping the outhouse still has some paper, as I hope to visit there on my way walking to work.

It's been fun. Hopefully by tomorrow everyone should be in their homes making analogous discoveries. Julie and Celeste were scheduled to leave this morning. Frank is still in Anchorage, and I think is hoping to leave tomorrow. Grisha is . Well, I don't know where Grisha is. I'm hoping he has already made it out of Pevek. I just now remember I still have a few things to add to this page to wrap things up, but it will be a few days. I have many pictures to sprinkle in (I'd bet I've taken over a 1000 on this trip). I also have to write the last few verses of the poem I've been working on describing our journey. So, I guess its time to stop procrastinating. Walk to work. Try to make it to the shower before I'm spotted. Accidentally delete all my emails. And hope that most people there have read all this so I won't have to repeat it 12 times. At least not until we get down to the pub.